Paradise City
by simba317
Summary: The search to reclaim some little piece of humanity.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Terminator franchise…although it would be sooo cool if I did. Lol.

**Author's Notes:** There are people out there who will want to hunt me for leaving my other fics in limbo…SORRY!

Soo…I watched the première of this show and was like 'I like this!' and then the second ep was pretty good, but by the third episode I was like 'I don't know…' I wasn't really much into the third ep. But then episode four was awesome and then episode five was even awesomer even though I was like 'ANOTHER Andy Goode ep…' but it ended up being awesome because of Derek.

Like the general consensus of some viewers, I think the series got waaaay better once Derek got on the show. He really became my favourite character. My favourite moment in the show has got to be when Derek takes John out for ice cream and shows him Kyle. I really hope FOX renews the show because it was just getting into it's groove. Thomas Dekker sounds positive about it…but fingers crossed!

So anyway, this fic will be Derek centric and sort of help explain some other pieces of his animosity towards Cameron and not just because he's from the post-Apocalyptic world where machines rule. Just some of my ideas and plot bunnies spinning. Since we've only got 9 episodes to go on, I guess you can say I'm gonna get a tad AU with things. I don't like giving things away…so you're gonna have to read and find out. I'll let the writing do the talking.

I have a lot of favourite TV shows (LOST!!!), movies and cartoons but there are very few that I can write for…this show is one of them. This plot bunny has just been coming to me after the finale…so yeah. I'm basing the title off one of my favourite songs, which is Paradise City by Guns N' Roses. Like I was gonna use You Could Be Mine…pfft. Lol.

Derek wiggles his toes in grass in episode 7. The scene below takes place during episode 9, 'What He Beheld' on John's birthday. The present year is 2008, I'm just going by this since Morris asks Cameron to the prom.

* * *

**PARADISE CITY**

**Chapter One: Grass**

_Take me down to a paradise city_

_Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty._

_Oh won't you please take me home._

* * *

Grass.

Fresh, clean and green.

It's life. It's alive.

The cool blades swish along the bare arch of his feet and squishes between his toes. Smiling in amusement, he watches the blades slip between his toes. The sky here is still blue and clear and the air is easy on his lungs, even though he knows that it's LA. He can hear the sounds of life, the hum of electric appliances around the block, the splash of sprinklers on freshly mowed lawns, the delicious smoky scent of a barbeque being grilled to perfection, birds chirping in the distance, the laughter of children...it's all so wonderfully normal and perfect.

So simple, so beautiful. It brings you him to his knees.

He never thought he'd see this again. Ever. It was so long ago…

And yet, there he is, smiling and squishing grass through his toes, brushing his teeth for twenty minutes straight. Sarah thinks he's some kind of nut, he supposes.

Everything seems so far away right now. But he still knows it's not quite idyllic. Yes, despite the fact that they didn't tell him, he knows. He has a nephew. Someone to protect again. It's something so normal and pure. Aren't all children pure?

John Connor is his nephew. He really didn't expect that. How can he hate his brother's son for not telling him where Kyle was? He understands that some secrets must be kept. It is a war after all.

He feels obligated to the boy, the obligation of blood. The obligation to preserve hope. He doesn't want to be John's father or anything; that was always something better suited for Kyle. He sees the father in the son. Kyle was kind, sweet, compassionate, untainted, despite it all. Not like him, all cold and bitter. Being the older brother, he guesses that he had to. Still, he wants to give John something of his father, something for himself too.

It's just that he was ripped away so quickly. Kyle was only twenty four. Just a- His thought ends. No, he stopped being a kid the day they sent the bombs down on them. And now, one day, Sarah will show him where he's buried. No matter how many times this had happened before, it just never got any easier. Their last moments were so fleeting, so unfair. He wishes that there could have been time for goodbyes, a few words. But wishes are stupid. They serve no purpose. There are no should've, would've, could'ves…, there is only room the assertive.

A large black squirrel scampers up a tree. He watches reverently. It's moments like these he wished he could remember more clearly from his childhood, so that he might have taken them with him during the war. During all the death that ruined the innocence of children.

He wishes he could shake them all out of this vulnerability, this hope. Don't you know what's coming? Are you so naïve? But it's too pretty a picture. Besides, it'd do no good to become another guest at the mental hospital. And he just misses this, the frailty of it all, like the little veins on the leaves of the budding Poplar tree leaves.

For now he savours it.

But inside, he feels empty at all this. And it's not because he knows it will all end in a few years, that Judgment Day is eminent and that the luxury of grass will be gone again. No, it's because he's got no one to share this with. Someone who would make this moment squishing toes in the grass worth it, make this moment amazing. Someone who gets it. Not Sarah or John, they don't get it. At least not yet. And most definitely not Cameron. What of the others, Sayles, Sumner and Timms? No, they were close, just not the close he's missing. His brother Kyle? He wasn't the same. And he too is dead, in the grass. No...they weren't that someone.

They weren't that someone that made living in hell worth it, that he fought for and protected, or made him smile or happy, if only for a moment. They weren't that someone that he missed with his entire being, the one that haunted his bittersweet memories or craved to be close to once more.

And that made all the difference.

He's still wondering what she'd say to compliment this moment, or if she'd simply smile and hold his hand, squishing her toes too. If he closes his eyes he can imagine her here with him, just for a minute. She's just a ghost in his memory now. The way her hand felt in his, the way the smile would light up her face and how her eyes would shine in wonder. The way she would look at him that would melt away the post-apocalyptic world. It's been two years, three months, eighteen days, seventeen hours, forty seven minutes, for him at least...since...

And once again, the thought comes unwelcome into his mind, 'Where are you? Are you still alive?' and the words he wished he had said but didn't in the end, the things he regrets above all else.

But then a resounding, 'Why?' pops into his mind and the memories flood into him again. His chest feels tight. He lets out a puff of breath. His bullet wound acts up and he rests his hand over the fresh scar, a new addition to a lifetime of scars. After all this time, the pain is still there.

He knows that she doesn't know where he is and he doesn't know where she is, not anymore, and it hurts.

'And who's fault is that?' his conscience yells at him.

He begins to know that it is a scar, no, an open wound that will never heal.

With a last gaze at the lazy afternoon clouds, he retreats into the house, before the kids come home to witness this moment of weakness.

* * *

"Reese! They want you in the Antechamber!" shouted a voice breaking him from sleep.

"What's going on?" he asked the man, shaking him out of his sleep. He was a soldier from another division, higher rank. He had unkempt dirty blond hair and brown eyes.

The man's face fell. He wasn't much older than Derek himself, maybe a year, not more.

"You'll find out when you get there," he said slowly.

Derek nodded, resigned.

"There's a meeting in five minutes. Connor wants everyone with Red Levels," he said and with that, the man ran out of the small makeshift room to go to another.

Derek immediately leapt off the top bunk and started to pull on his gear, pants, jacket, boots, weapons…

"Red Levels? What does Connor want with Red Levels?" asked Kyle, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes from the bottom bunk. What he didn't say was that it was dangerous and requesting only Red Levels specifically, meant that it was a suicide mission, involving Conner's crème de la crème.

"Don't know, Ky, I just do what I'm told," replied Derek strapping on extra guns.

"Yeah right, that's why Connor's real pleased with you," teased Kyle.

"Well, the guy's a tight ass, Baby Brother," remarked Derek with a smirk.

"I hate that," pouted Kyle.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, I'll be calling you, 'Baby Brother' again in no time," promised Derek.

Kyle just rolled his eyes, "You'd better, dumbass."

"I promise, dipshit," replied Derek, pulling on a toque, "wouldn't want to miss you finally being able to shave!"

"I'm eightteen!" shouted Kyle, throwing a worn out baseball at his brother's back.

Derek winced slightly, the boy had an arm. Great, that would bruise. Him and his big mouth.

"You throw like a girl!" he exclaimed from the door, before trotting down the dimly lit corridor to the Antechamber.

"You act like one!" replied Kyle as Derek rounded the corner.

Once outside their little room, Derek's focus immediately changed. One part of his brain turned off and another turned on. He hardened. His footsteps were a practiced trot, making only slight clipping sounds on the concrete floors. The halls were all dimly lit, damp, with graffiti sprayed onto the dark industrial walls, ranging from spidery tags, blockish slogans, impish cartoons to intricate full blown murals. One such fresco featured a pack of wolves feasting on a pair of cyborgs. Wolf pups could be seen playing with a robot's head.

Up ahead, he saw the entrance to the Antechamber and soldiers of his class, experience and rank filing into the large room. All of them were Red Levels. Derek felt his heart sink. Whatever happened, it was bad. Connor was sending in his best men.

Slipping through the doors, Derek claimed a spot by a large pillar, close to the end of the room. He could see Connor up in the front and the man looked grim. No one in the Antechamber was speaking. The silence filled up the room with a choking fist. At the far end, was a raised area, for the ones running the show. Where Connor was situated, he had a wooden table with maps laid out. They were the cleanest items in the hall, quite possibly this base. Advisors, strategists and high ranking military personnel stood around the maps, talking softly.

The Antechamber was the best lit room in the entire base. Here was where there were always fluorescent tubes of light hanging from chains on the ceiling. The Antechamber could very well have been a throne room, but Connor was no king.

Connor was of medium build, if you looked at him, you'd never see that he was the leader of men. He didn't look particularly special or unique, but then, thought Derek, you kind of had to, in order to evade the Machines for so long. Connor probably would have been considered handsome at one point, but running the resistance had worn at him, and he never seemed to be able to smile. His expression gave nothing away about John Connor himself. Sometimes Derek wonders how his wife handles dealing with a husband who's regarded as the messiah, a guy who doesn't seem to have the spark of life in him since the robots raped it away. He supposes it's pressure.

Finally, the last soldier hurried into the room.

"Daniels, lock the door," ordered Connor.

A man in his late twenties with dark hair pushed the heavy reinforced steel door into place before turning a wheel to lock it, keeping enemies and eavesdroppers out. 'Aww, I feel so special; included in the super secret meeting and everything,' thought Derek, sardonically.

"Nothing said in this room is to go out these doors. This is for Red Levels only. Is that clear?" shouted Connor. A resounding 'Sir, yes, sir,' echoed throughout the room.

"As I'm sure you all have gathered, we're in dire straits," started Connor. He wasn't one to beat around the bush.

"The Machines have taken The Hare. Dr. Song is dead." he said darkly and Derek felt the hearts of all the soldiers in the room drop to the ground. The Hare, a base that was their best chance for any hope of survival had been taken. Years of research into survival, food production, weapon development, gone. Dr. Michael Song, the head researcher of the place…shit.

"There was a mole. Someone tipped off the Machines on the location of The Hare. They knew exactly where to infiltrate it and cause the most damage," continued Connor and Derek could feel the rage of every person in the room. Someone would pay for this.

"Your mission is this: Retrieve any and all specimens, prototypes, programs, anything that would help us and any survivors there, especially Dr. Song's children. They, along with Dr. Song are the only ones that know how everything was developed, created and used in The Hare, from all departments. Finally, we will burn The Hare to the ground. The Machines cannot have in their possession any of our developments."

"You will depart at 05:00 in the trucks, stolen from the Machines. Munroe, Summers, Grey, Nikolievitch, McCoy, Daniels, Lee and Bishop will take their men and provide openings into The Hare. Howlett, LeBeau, D'Ancanto, Wagner, Darkholme, Braddock, Reese and Pryde will take their men and commence the infiltration and recovery of The Hare. All items will be brought back here, to The Wolf. Smith, Drake, Guthrie, Blaire, Beubier, Worthington and Cassidy with their men will provide constant artillery cover for everyone, when recovery is complete, we will send them in and they'll wire The Shadow and destroy it."

"Magnus and Charles will provide the details," and then Connor stepped to the side and allowed his advisors to go into the meat and potatoes of the mission.

Once again, Connor was looking at him. Derek was always creeped out by this. It was like Connor knew something about him that he didn't and it bothered him. Plus, Connor failed to share with him what it was. Not that Connor was forthcoming with anything. Connor seemed to be able to read him and Derek didn't like that one bit, like he knew exactly how Derek would ultimately, once again done something reckless. The asshole didn't know him at all, so the staring had better stop.

After a half hour, the meeting was over and everyone was dismissed to arm up.

He saw Kyle immediately upon exiting the room.

"What's going on?" he asked firmly.

Derek hardened, "I'm under orders," he said almost mechanically. His mouth drew a grim line and he refused to budge.

Kyle rolled his eyes. Derek only followed the rules when he deemed them necessary. "What's going on?"

Derek merely ignored him and kept on walking towards the armoury. His steps hard and precise echoed against the wet walls. He was about to disappear behind the corner.

"I'm not a kid you can shelter, Derek and you know it. I got out of there and it wasn't because of you," seethed Kyle.

Derek turned back, pinning his younger brother with his eyes. His gaze spoke of guilt, sorrow, regret and failure. A simple "I know," was all was directed to Kyle, before he continued on.

* * *

Where there were once great feats of engineering, the freeways of Los Angeles, there was no more. It was just a whole lot of twisted metal, chunks of concrete and asphalt. The roads now were no better than dirt impressions, the kind that horses make on trails by stomping down all the grass. Still, that was when there were roads. Mostly, they had no roads, just memories of them.

Yet, green grass grows between the piles of rocks, just barely. Nature reclaims just a little of what it once owned.

The trucks clatter along roughly to reach The Hare in droves. Routes have been scouted. Decoys have been sent out. If you watch, just up ahead, you can see a tower of thick black smoke hurtling towards the once blue sky, the once pure sky. It's The Hare, secretly carved into the wall of a mountain by a once illustrious army, that Resistance took up residence in ten years ago and now, it's burning. The last vestige of hope is burning.

They're getting close.

Gun shots.

"METAL!"

Explosions.

And then, there they are, silver monstrosities rising from the desert, with their cheap imitations of human form.

But no worry, they've got their isotope canons.

Derek senses that there's something different about today. He feels more alive than ever. He only feels alive when he's out testing his mortality now. Feeling how fragile it all is, it can end in a flash. Today, as the dawn breaks, muddy, different from the sunrises of his childhood, he can feel the blood surging through his body, hear his heart thumping in his ears, the surge of air into his lungs and the rush of thoughts storm his mind. Perhaps it's morbid.

Directions are being yelled by those in command. More arms are being passed around, extra grenades, some more water. Fear seems to steal the hearts of the men in the truck. He's different. He never feels more relaxed than ever.

Today's the day. Maybe it's his day to die. Derek doesn't know. There's just something in the air. There's grass on the ground despite it all.

Something within him feels it. He's been searching for something, in every mission, every battle, fight and scuffle, every time he leaves the base. He never knows what it is. Maybe he'll find it today, finally.

He feels it again.

It's his heart stirring, it's waking up.

* * *

"Report," ordered John Connor. His gaze did not meet the soldier. No, it was fixed on the mirror in front of him. He looked horrible, like a shell of his former self. But it's never easy to be the hope to the human race, to hold within you all their hopes and dreams. It's a never ending burden that always got harder to bear.

"Sir! The Songs are all dead. Only one body is unaccounted for. We managed to recover about 70 percent of the items of importance at The Hare due to the locking mechanisms in the store rooms. 40 percent of the men we sent out are dead. 30 percent are injured with various conditions. The remaining men are stabilizing the area. All the men who infiltrated The Shadow and are alive are out of the premises. Only Reese is unaccounted for, dead or alive."

"You may go now, Evans," replied John.

Evans saluted and left the Antechamber, a place John hasn't left for over 36 hours. He's barely eaten, never mind slept. All he has left are his thoughts and his prayers to the universe.

_C'mon Derek, find her. You're supposed to. You're supposed to find her._

* * *

Derek was outside again, only this time he was eating a bowl of Lucky Charms and milk, using a large spoon made of plastic laminate that had some cute cartoon puppy on it, big eyes and all. He hadn't commented on it when Sarah handed it to him, saying something about time lag, nor did she comment about this, his fifth bowl of Lucky Charms and milk. If he keeps this up, he'll get fat and out of shape, he thinks, the robots will catch him. But it doesn't stop him from catching the last soggy alphabet pieces with the dog spoon or tilting the bowl and slurping up all the tie-dyed milk. A sliver of milk drips from the corner of his mouth and his wipes it off with his hand.

All the while, he is seated on the swing set, listening to it creak as he shifted his weight. A jug of milk and the box of Lucky Charms rest beside his bare feet.

It's John's birthday.

Sarah sent Cameron to get a cake. It seems absurd to him.

Derek had taken John to see his father. What better gift could he give to his nephew? What else could he give?

He saw the boy he was at eleven and his baby brother, Kyle, just five…what a difference twenty years makes. Twenty years to become violent, a cold hearted murderer, to lose your morals, your soul…Yes, Judgment Day stole many things, mostly humanity. But back in the spring of 2008, he was just a boy like any other. He was a boy who liked sports, especially baseball, teaching his younger brother everything an older brother teaches a younger brother, but mostly, he had dreams.

Four years was all it took for them to end. No more sports scholarship to a prestigious university, no more professional league, no more championships. It would simply be living for the next hour, for the next day, maybe the next week; the next month was too far ahead. And maybe if he was lucky, he'd live another year. He'd seen more than he ever should've and did things he never thought he'd be capable of. Derek was a hardened soldier, even if he wished it wasn't so, that he and Kyle never had to become what they had sworn never to do. But of course, those oaths were childish and in this world, children are never spared.

The morbid part of him wants to know everything, every detail that happened to Kyle in the end. He has the right person to ask that of. But the larger part of him, just can't take it.

BOOOOOMMM!

It's sudden, quick and it shatters the illusion of everything.

The deafening sound of explosion that he was accustomed to, the high pitched crash of glass, the scent of burning rubber, the stench of gasoline, the twisting of metal, of steal, the flash of flame and heat.

He drops the bowl and it rolls harmlessly on the grass, the spoon clatters next to it.

Derek dashes to the front of the house, gravel scraping at his bare feet, but he pays it no notice. He can hear Sarah and John doing the same inside, scrambling to find out what happened. He has a hunch, only it's not so much a hunch, but an expectation. He knows, he just knows it's one of the cyborgs after them. A lifetime has conditioned him. The soldier is taking over. He's on autopilot, ready to order and to obey.

Unwanted, the phrase 'Hang in there, baby!' pops into his head.

Behind him, at the swing set, the box of Lucky Charms is spilled onto the grass and the milk begins to once again create a pearly tie-dyed version of itself.

* * *

Let's see if you can spot the homage to another band of 'time travelling resistance fighters'. Brownie points goes to those who get all the aliases. The title of the next chapter is a BIG hint. Greek mythology gets a nudge nudge too. Lol. Bigger brownie points goes to those who can figure out which myth it is.

The Hare and The Wolf are inspired by the stations/hatches on Lost. The Hare is named so, because it's a base all about research, The Wolf is due to the pack mentality of the soldiers.

As you can see…there's gonna be some Derek flashbacks about his life before coming to 2007. The flashbacks take place in 2021.

**UP NEXT: Chapter Two: Adamantine**

**A sneak peak…**

"_What?! You gonna tell them she fell face first on the hot plate of the coffee maker? Great job, mom!" _

"_Shut up, Reese!"_

Drop me a line! See you around. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.

simba317


End file.
